Interview: Melissa Auf Der Maur

After honing her bass-playing skills with Hole from 1994 to 1999, and enjoying a short stint with the Smashing Pumpkins, Melissa Auf Der Maur is back to rock the musical world with her debut solo album, Auf Der Maur.

quick bio

Melissa Auf Der Maur was born on March 17, 1972, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The daughter of Linda Gaboriau, Montreal's first female rock DJ, and Nick Auf Der Maur, a Montreal personality who was a writer, radio announcer and politician, Melissa was raised to be outgoing and love bars (her late father was a local pub regular and even had a street named after him on Montreal's bar strip).

Auf Der Maur started out pretty small, before fate took its course. She started the band Tinker with her best friend and boyfriend. With several songs to its credit and little performing experience (at least in front of big crowds), Tinker was invited to open for the Smashing Pumpkins' Montreal show in 1993.

Pumpkins lead singer Billy Corgan was impressed with Melissa's bass-playing skills — not to mention cool attitude — and recommended her to Hole lead singer Courtney Love after Hole's bassist died of an overdose.

Melissa joined Courtney, Eric Erlandson and Patty Schemel on Hole's Live Through This tour in 1994, two weeks after their initial meeting. Melissa learned Hole's music by playing along with Kristen Pfaff's bass playing, right before the tour.

For Hole's next album, Celebrity Skin, Melissa pitched in with Courtney and Eric, by collaborating in the songwriting process and writing many of the harmonies.

When Melissa called it quits with Hole in 1999, her life almost came full circle when she received a call from the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan to replace D'arcy Wretzky on bass, just in time for the band's Machina tour in 2000. Her stint as a Pumpkin didn't last long, as the band broke up later that year.

Melissa is currently touring for her debut solo album, Auf Der Maur, which she calls her "dream project." Melissa sat down with us to talk about her experience with Hole, and of course, the biggest project of them all — her first solo album.

I am on tour in Niagara Falls, on the American side of the border. It is the most desolate, bizarre kind of sad town, considering it is next to the most beautiful mother invention thing in North America. This is the most desolate town with closed-down casinos.

Q: What are you going to bring to them?

I am here to bring them pure rock music and pure smiles.

Q: When you aren't on tour, or in Niagara Falls, New York, where are you based?

Q: How does a young girl from Montreal, with a very well-known father, decide to pick up and move to the States, and join a band called Hole?

They picked me, for one thing. I never would have packed my bags and moved to the States. First of all, my father was a well-known politician, but he was a pretty alternative leftist. A lot of people called him a rock musician version of a politician. He was pretty out there, a wild man essentially. I wasn't raised in any conservative environment. I had been going to bars since the age of six years old, where my father was holding his campaign headquarters. Meanwhile, my mother was extremely ahead of her times as a feminist, independent, do-it-yourself [person], as well as very liberal in her views. She was Montreal's first female rock disc jockey. She raised me on her record collection. I grew up listening to Frank Zappa and the Rolling Stones. My mother chose to send me to this experimental music school called F.A.C.E., which is now an official school... My parents were very alternative individuals. They were both freelance workers who only worked in areas that they believed in and never had to work for a company. They were just independent-oriented individuals who raised me with the notion that I could do whatever I wanted to do. When I fell in love with photography, I went to school for photography and I thought I would be a working photographer, which I thought would support my love for music. I was playing in a local rock band in Montreal, and I was a DJ at this alternative rock bar called the Bifteck, on St. Laurent [Boulevard]. I was a DJ there from 17 years old through 22, [until] the day I joined Hole... The way it happened was I went to see a Smashing Pumpkins concert in 1991 at Foufounes Electriques, when Smashing Pumpkins didn't even have their first record out and they were playing for 20 people for a $1. I was blown away by the band and became pen pals with Billy Corgan, who later allowed my Montreal band [Tinker] to open up for the Pumpkins on their Siamese Dream tour, and after he saw me play he said, "You're a great bass player and one day you will be in my band." Instead of being in his band, six months later he called me and recommended me to his friend Courtney [Love]'s band and I spent five years there. Then I eventually joined Billy's band.

Q: What was the process like with Hole when you first joined the band, with the loss of Kurt [Cobain]?

Kurt had just died a few months earlier. I toured with the band in July and Kurt had died in April [1994].

Melissa dishes on filling a void with Hole and working on her solo debut...